- The halloween emails represent typical corporate strategy;- MS is still a corporation;

So the burden of proof is on those who say MS has changed.

Signs of changing would include:- Support for old systems, instead of the endless unneeded costly and toxic upgrade cycle. You cannot have volunteers like debian to better support old stuff than a billion tier corporation.- API stability and openness, instead of pushing and retiring flavours of the month. Ask people who invested in silverlight.

- Acknowledging the billion hours, and dollars, spent just because MS thought your computer was marketshare. I think many wars have costed less to society than MS, the other corporations, and the entire system of IT based on planned obsolescence, incompatibilities, NIH syndrome.

What's wrong with being classified as a rather violent but otherwise perfectly fine animal like an ape?What about white men who risk being classified as Bill Gates, or Poettering? That would be really offensive.

because of control. It's control that drives innovation, not people's best interest.

So, while any sane person reasoning in a vacuum would eventually decide that the internet should be about sharing data on open protocols with a wealth of different clients so that hackers have no monocultures to study and attack, we have web browsers happily executing js from sites whose url is gotten by executing js (possibly to make noscript users give up) and the government of elbonia able to tell you that that yourbank.de certificate is legitimate.

This generation has to go through the same hell through which the previous one went with windows, and given the nature of the notifications in my sis' smartphone, we are near.

An alternative theory for the same conclusion, which I favour because experimental data is more accessible is:Climbing mountains implies the increase of possibility of falling to great depths. Which means that, statistically speaking, when you go to the mountain you have indeed less mass beneath you than if you walked and occasionally fell elsewhere, where the depth is lower, or in the sea, where you float in mass denser than air.

Let's connect the dots.Recently a study says standby appliances cost billion of dollars.The energy companies then study alternative ways to waste energy, since possible regulation may come soon.At one board meeting, the CEO asks "So how can we squander more energy?" and a young guy hesitantly raises hand and says "There is that thing called bitcoin mining, people waste electricity to solve cryptograph..."
"OK, let's force consumers to mint whatevercoin NOW"